


(fuck with me) you'll regret it

by Isabel_Stark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ...or does she?, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters (Minor) - Freeform, Dark!Sansa, F/M, Guns, Mentions of Rape, Murder, Nightmares, Private Investigator Jon, Sansa murders joffrey and littlefinger and a lot of their henchmen, Suicidal Thoughts, and i really mean A N G S T, i use the fuck word a lot, if you wanna read some angst, not rated cause if I continue with it there will probably be smut, this one is for you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:22:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21537403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isabel_Stark/pseuds/Isabel_Stark
Summary: Jon has been searching for Sansa since the day she disappeared, leaving the bodies of Joffrey Baratheon, Petyr Baelish, and others in her wake. When he finally catches up with her after years of searching, he finds himself staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun and into the eyes of a girl he no longer knows. It’s time for Jon to examine his own role in the hardening of her soul, and for Sansa to finally face herself, her family, and the love she left behind.
Relationships: Jon Snow & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 15
Kudos: 79





	1. never gonna outrun me

**Author's Note:**

> SO I am kind of waiting to see the response to this to decide whether to make it multi chapter. I kind of left it so it can go both ways. Also, it is un beta'ed because I literally don't know any other writers for Jonsa but I would LOVE to. Enjoy, I hope!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa's pretty pissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Own Me by Bulow

**Jon**

“Don’t fucking reach for anything!”

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Jon Snow almost pissed himself. Only one other time in his life had he had a gun pointed at him, and it certainly hadn’t been in such close proximity to his face as it was now. Furthermore, it hadn’t been in the hands of a suspected killer, but a client’s drunk ex-husband in his pajamas. It hadn’t been in the middle of who-the-fuck-knows where, either, with no one else around but a dead-eyed girl he had loved in what seemed like another life. 

His hands went up, though; a result of training from his short, failed stint as a police officer for Castle Black PD. When he spoke, he was disappointed to hear himself stumbling over his words.

“S-Sansa. Jesus, will you put down the gun? It’s just… It’s just _me_.” The last word was a plea, laced with disbelief and shock. This _was_ Sansa Stark, wasn’t it?

Against his better judgement, Jon lifted his gaze from the empty terror of the barrel of the gun to her face. In a single moment, he felt both a fracturing in his chest and a tingling in his hands; a deep, unexplainable pain that reached all the way to his throat and a sudden expansion of his fear that pushed him closer to believing that he would not make it out of this alive without reaching for the gun.

Her face was hollowed, translucent, and eerily smooth. Her expression gave away only resentment, peeking through the cracks in her mask. More than anything he had seen before, Sansa reminded him of a ghost. A furious, exhausted ghost. The determination and numbness in her eyes is what caused terror to truly begin to root itself in his belly. She felt nothing but pain and anger; not that he could tell, at least. If there was recognition of him as a friend, as someone she loved, he could not find it. 

This _was_ Sansa Stark, and yet it wasn’t. 

And so, he lunged. 

****

**Sansa, earlier**

_How have they found me? After all this time, after all my caution and all my sins and all I’ve sacrificed to stay invisible, how could they possibly have found me?_ The gun felt familiar and evil in Sansa’s hands, resting on her skin. _I should have known better than to go into town. I’ve gotten lazy._ Anger rose in her throat, then. Hatred, burning like tequila returning from the pit of her stomach to make her heave. _So stupid. God, how could I be so fucking stupid._

The car in her driveway was old, run down. _So, a goon,_ she thought. _I’m not even worth the big guns anymore._ She resisted the urge to chuckle at the irony, sparing a fleeting glance to the heavy piece she held. If she had laughed, it would have been empty anyways. She hated the sound. 

She waited and watched from the hay loft in the barn until the dark stranger approached her front door. Only once he was standing there, poised to ring the bell did she slip out of hiding and into the shadows of the oak trees lining her back yard, moving as silently as a slinking cat towards her back door. Once she slipped inside, she heard what must have been the second or third doorbell ring. _A polite goon._ Her grin was sardonic in the most shallow way. _Who woulda thought?_ She wondered, though, how long that politeness would last, and how much time she had to prepare for this fight, her first in a good long time. She bet on another minute at most. 

‘Always better to be early than late, my love. Never let them catch you by surprise.’ Catelyn Stark’s stern, wise voice echoed in Sansa’s head, seeming to bounce off her skull for the pain it brought her. A snarl rose low in her throat, unbidden. Her mother had been talking about house guests, of course. Not mindless brutes meaning to bring her, kicking and screaming and battered and bruised, to her long and excruciating death. Or worse: to bring her home.

Vital seconds lost to unhelpful and uninvited thoughts, Sansa hastened to her pantry, closing the door almost entirely and knowing full well that the hinges were oiled and silent - a fruit of her diligent labor and upkeep of this aging hovel she lived in. She had learned the hard way what happens when you don’t ensure the quietude of your hiding place. Sansa’s right hand wandered briefly to her right ear, feeling the blunt edge where part of the shell had been taken off by a poorly-aimed knife. 

The sounds of boots on wood coming from her foyer indicated that the intruder was nearing her kitchen, and Sansa’s muscles tensed up. The movement was fluid, not that of an edgy pet seeing a squirrel, but rather of a predator slipping into hunting mode. Her body’s response to danger now was not one of panic, but of anticipation; hushed expectation. She heard the stranger enter the room, and his back slowly came into view as he rounded the counter into her field of vision. 

He was broad, tall, with dark curls that reached his shoulders and a flannel over worn jeans. His boots were for real work, not for a show of the wealth of his employer. Puzzlement and vague familiarity mingled in her gut. She knew him, she had seen him somewhere before. But, unless the Lannisters were more bankrupt than they let on, he was not their thug. And she was relatively certain that Littlefinger’s employees had dispersed after she had bled him dry and left him in the sun.

She tried to imagine where she might have met him. Human contact was not a luxury she indulged in much over the past few years, and she would have remembered seeing him in town on Saturday. He had a distinctly authoritative air about him… A cop, perhaps? Before she was able to consider it any more (which she may not have done anyways, if she had suspected him to be a lawman), he spoke. 

“Sansa? Are… Are you around?” It was an unsure voice; unsure of where he was, of why he was there, and probably of whether or not he should be speaking at all. It was a kind voice, full of hope and yet full of creeping disappointment. It was a familiar voice. It was Jon’s voice, and Sansa saw red. 

It was less than a second, less than a split second, before Sansa was out of the pantry, cocking her gun and aiming it at Jon’s pretty head, shouting hoarsely. 

“Turn the fuck around! Don’t fucking reach for anything!” The bile was back in her throat, hotter this time, and she had to fight the urge to wretch. He turned around, eyes wide and terrified and she felt her stomach give one good heave, which she fought by swallowing hard. 

She wanted to put the gun down. She wanted break apart, to die. He was looking at her with pain and confusion, and then he was looking at her in pure fear. He had seen her now. Not little Sans, not his best friend’s sister, not the Starks’ brilliant eldest daughter, and not the girl who let him kiss her on the swings in their backyard on the night of her first day in high school. He was seeing _her_ , a murderess and a fugitive, full of hate and emptiness and fury. He was seeing Sansa Lannister and Alayne Stone and, finally, Sansa Stark. The true Sansa Stark. An unwilling and unwavering survivor. That small, evil part of her that sits in the bottom of her stomach and eats up at the rest of her wanted to lower the gun, to shoot out his knee and watch him fall and wail and bleed. The whole of her, though… Yes, it wanted to die. _Too late for that. Wish I had thought of it sooner. I’ve come too far. Not even the Many-Faced God would take me now._

She watched him as he reluctantly looked at her face, and she wondered briefly if maybe her facade would snow him, as it had others; if he could turn around and walk out of here, accepting that she was lost and gone and tell what remained of the Starks that she was dead. Because truly, she was. Sansa as they had known her was dead, and the Sansa that existed now was empty enough that, for all intents and purposes, she might as well be. What Sansa did now, post-mortem, was of no use to her family. In fact, it was a gash in the side of the Stark name, in the face of the Stark legacy. 

But, even as she thought it, she knew that, once again, her hopeful thinking was delusion. Jon was a smart boy. _A smart man, now,_ she thought dully. And, of all the things she knew about him, the firmest fact was that he had always, always been able to see her. 

And maybe part of her, in direct contrast to the evil pit in her belly, had been whispering up at her from her heart that there was still some light left. That there was still something in her that remembered love and bliss and feelings outside of pain and blinding anger. So, when Jon met her eyes with a conclusion of horror and genuine fear and Sansa realized that, if the person left in this world who could always see right through her could see only darkness in her, she understood that she was well and truly fucked. 

She hardly had a moment to try to decide what this revelation, this understanding as a result of being forced to look at herself through Jon’s eyes, meant for what she would do next before Jon made a move for her.

****

**Jon**

Jon grabbed at the barrel, pushing it upwards with one hand, over his shoulder. As he reached for Sansa’s shoulder, exposed under her tank top and slightly sunburnt, with his other hand, hoping to wrench the gun out of her hand and immobilize her with a bear hug, the gun discharged. 

He has been prepared for that possibility, but the noise still caused him to flinch and pause. Not long, but long enough. She let go of the gun and, faster than he could have believed, she was gone, running for the back door. 

“Sansa!” He called, dropping the gun on a counter and setting off after her, as quickly as possible. She had a head start, but opening the back door had slowed her down and, the truth of the matter was, Jon was faster. She was dashing across her enormous back yard, headed for a run-down barn in the distance, half hidden behind a stand of new oak trees. 

“Sansa, it’s me, it’s Jon! I won’t hurt you!” His shouts were short, breathless, almost unintelligible. He had a sinking feeling, a creeping thought that, if she got to that barn, it was over. She might not kill him, but he would never get her out of there. So, with one last burst of the adrenaline that had been coursing through his body from the moment he heard her voice, Jon ran faster. Faster than he had in police training, faster than he had during any high school or college track meet, faster than the beat of his pulse in his throat. Closing the distance, he took her down as softly as possible, wrapping his arms around her as they fell, pressing her tightly from all sides to keep her still, to keep her from running again. His right hand found hers, while his left hand wrapped easily around her left wrist. Tight, not bruising.

Three and a half years of tireless searching, despair, and hopelessness. The search for Sansa had been Jon’s life, just as he had been the only possibility the remaining stark family had of finding their oldest sister alive before those who wanted to hurt her or jail her. It was his purpose, and now he had found her. He could almost imagine this was a hug, a real one. For the tiniest moment, Jon imagined finding Sansa in that house, excited to see him. He imagined her throwing her arms around him and telling him she missed him, asking after her family and apologizing for being gone so long. He imagined apologizing to her for what had happened the last time they were together, and telling her that the only thing that her family wanted was for her to come home. And then, for an even tinier moment, he wondered if he should just let her go. 

He could open his arms and she would be gone in an instant. He could get back into his car and drive home and tell Arya and Bran that he was too tired, too empty to continue looking, that the trail had gone cold. No, though. He couldn’t, really. He wouldn’t make it if he left now. He would drive his car off a bridge or into a light pole just to be done with it. Just to rest. Just to never have to think or hope or _feel_ anything about any of it again. So, even if it was just for himself, which it wasn’t, he couldn’t leave now. He had to see it through. 

When these moments passed, Jon felt something was… wrong. Everything, of course, was wrong, but something was off. Truly. He realized she wasn’t fighting him. There was no biting or scratching or kicking or screaming. Instead, he felt her breaths through her ribs, fast and ragged, under his reach. He heard them, watched them blowing the tall grass in front of her face. And then, the floodgates opened. The hitch in her breathing turned into abrupt sobbing. 

It was a wrenching noise, and Jon felt it to his teeth. It sounded so deeply painful, like the sound itself was a dark creature, digging its claws into her flesh all the way up. 

“Oh, god…” She managed to get out. “Oh… Oh god…” Her breaths between sobs were the sounds of steel dragged against concrete, and before he knew it was happening, Jon’s own soft crying was added to the cacophony of despair, of relief. He felt her relax the tiniest bit, her head falling to rest on his shoulder, the part of him touching the ground. She continued to cry and so did he, his face resting at the juncture of her neck and her collarbone, his tears wetting her hair. She smelled like sun and hard living. And ice; the dark, hard ice of deep winter that yields only to itself.

She _was_ Sansa, his Sansa, Sansa Stark of Winterfell. He would bring her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know whether you like it alone or if you would read a multi-chapter fic of this! Also always open to criticism, advice, and corrections!


	2. got the devil on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Jon both have to take a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...and there was only one bed..."
> 
> title from Own Me by Bulow
> 
> do u ever end a fic with one ch. and then dream about it until you have to add more? yeah, me neither. more coming, too.

**Sansa**

It was a wrenching sensation, like someone had shredded open her chest, ricked her ribcage apart, and wrapped a whetted claw around both of her lungs. It burned and stung and Sansa felt pain burst behind her eyeballs. The feeling was so overwhelming that it was all she could do to keep breathing, and even that was a less than fruitful venture, at the moment. She knew she was crying, but it really felt more like a collapse, a torrential storm that brought rain down so hard that it tore away at her very flesh. 

The only intruding perspective she could find through this whirlwind of hail and misery, like a steadfast rock in a flooding stream, was the strange and familiar weight of strong arms around her. They were warm, trembling a little, and undeniably there. They were real, and the onslaught of hurt and ghosts of wounds long past, though very convincing, were not. 

When the tempest passed, Sansa found her eyes, sore and blurred, opening to the golden sunlight of early evening passing through the green, overgrown grass of her backyard. Her breath hurt her throat, her chest, her heart, and she found her hand, the one not being held by someone else’s, clutching desperately at someone’s shirt. As she slowly released it, she found that her joints ached from the power of her grip. For the briefest moment, Sansa imagined that the arms around her were covered in a fuzz of auburn hair, that the chest she was held to was broader, and that her brother’s breathless chuckle sounded behind her head, exasperated with her, readying to remind her that it was only a game, make-believe, that he would never let any of the imaginary monsters and villains hurt her. But then Sansa heard a ragged inhale and took a deep breath, realizing the scent around her wasn’t sunblock and a little bit of honey, nor was it rot and embalming fluid, which is what Robb would smell of now, anyway. 

No, she smelled linen and sandalwood and soap, and remembered that Jon was here, and she had let herself be caught. The very thought dropped into Sansa’s stomach like a stone. She clamped her teeth together and, before really understanding why, turned her head and bit the hand holding hers. Hard. Jon yelped behind her, shocked and out of breath. Which, Sansa realized as she started to squirm in his momentarily weakened grip, was also an affliction currently ailing her. It was maybe half a minute of wiggling before she tired herself out again, resigning herself limply to Jon’s grip. 

She realized, as they lay there panting, that she could elbow him in the gut. Maybe kick him in the groin, if she struggled her right leg out from between his. She also realized, in short order, that she wouldn’t. The bite had been a last stand, plausible deniability. _I tried,_ she would tell herself, if she had to. _I bit him, look at his hand. I didn’t want to go with him, honestly._ But, within the pinprick of glowing warmth in her breast, she hoped that she wouldn’t have to. She hoped she would find her way into his beat up car tonight. She hoped she wouldn’t have to convince herself that she was empty, again. 

He wasn’t saying anything, and Sansa felt the arm bearing her weight start to go tingly. So, she cleared her throat. 

**Jon**

“So.” Jon felt himself start when he heard her voice for the first time, not screaming. He cursed himself, knowing that it let her in on how on edge he was. He hoped she wouldn’t struggle again. It made him feel sick to have to hold her down. Instead, she continued after a moment. “What now?” The quality of her voice had grown darker, but not lower. It still reminded him of summer flowers and bubbling streams, but now there were deep, steely clouds overhead, forking lightning in the distance. 

Jon mulled the question over in his mind. It was a good one, as Sansa had always been so apt to ask. What was his plan? Admittedly, Jon had stopped anticipating finding Sansa in any of the places he searched around the time he discovered Petyr Baelish’s corpse in the Vale. Perhaps part of him had stopped hoping he _would_ find her. The thought stung his throat, and he swallowed it forcefully. He had been deep in thought for too long, evidently, because Sansa interrupted them with the tiniest of wiggles. 

“Jon…” His brain felt like it was on pause when he heard her say his name. There was a bursting feeling in his chest and only the purest force of emotions wracked through him like ghosts with a vengeance. Guilt, for all his considerations of giving up, of running, of believing in her own guilt. Flawless sorrow for her, for them, for what they had missed together. Love, pellucid and bright and terrifyingly potent, for the breath she took, the thoughts she had, the feelings she harboured. All of her was contained in his heart, and it felt full and swollen and uncontainable. 

“Jon... my arm really hurts.” Jon wasn’t aware he had been holding his breath, but he let it out and watched it set her hair to dancing, like flames in the wind. His voice was hoarse when he apologized. 

“I’m sorry, I…” He very nearly opened his arms there, wanting nothing close to hurting her, and to see her face. But he grasped hold of his good sense by the baby hairs and instead decided on sitting the both of them up. His own hand was starting to go numb, the blood flow cut off by both of their weights. Slowly, and with great pain not to hurt her or loosen his grip, he brought them both to a sitting position. Swinging his leg around, he held her to his chest but moved with her to allow her to sit on the ground instead of her knees. She sat between his legs, her own cross-legged. He held her like one might hold a misbehaving child, only she was almost his height and disturbingly calm. He knew that he needed a plan, but there was hardly a moment to consider one before she was turning her head as far as she could, giving him the picture of her profile, outlined by the nearly-setting sun. 

“I’m getting super sore like this…” She angled her head down, as if embarrassed. “... I won’t run... if you let go.” Her speech was halting. _She **is** embarrassed._ Jon almost laughed, an image of ever-polite and easily-ruffled pre-teen Sansa flitting through his head, nearly in tears after Arya had flung food in her face during a family picnic. He held his tongue, afraid to exacerbate her discomfort. The moment passed quickly, and Jon knew what had to be done. It was a risk, but was there truly any other choice? He had no binds and, if he had, he wasn’t sure whether he could bring himself to use them, no matter how badly he wanted to keep her. 

Taking a deep breath, steeling himself, he made his decision.

“Ok.”

**Sansa**

Sansa almost echoed him, she was in such disbelief. _Ok?!_ Surely enough, Jon withdrew his arms from her, leaving her feeling oddly cold and disjointed. She let her arms drop to her lap and, even as it occurred to her - _This is my chance, I can go. I can make it to the barn, grab the handgun, and make him leave me alone_ \- she dismissed it. It felt a lot like swallowing a piece of food that you thought was chewed but wasn’t quite, hurting as it passes down like it wasn’t meant to fit there. But it was the last word that nailed the coffin: _alone._ That’s what she would be. 

She realized, like a slap, that she had been holding out hope for who knew how long that someone would find her. That someone would push their way in and take hold of her and refuse to let go. Jon was here. He had shoved and kicked and elbowed his way in and he was here. For her. Someone was here _for her._ Not Sansa Lannister or Alayne Stone. For Sansa Stark, even as she had become. Or at least, she hoped. How deeply and irrevocably it would hurt if he saw who she really was and turned from her, rejecting a girl who was not who he had been searching for.

But now she realized she had to take that chance. 

Slowly, Sansa rose to her feet. She wobbled a little, adrenaline making her blood lighter and her limbs weightless. Turning, she looked at Jon from above, the sun illuminating his Northern, wolfish face and his always-a-spot-too-long hair, making him look like a great leader, painted in oils and hung in a great exhibit somewhere very civilized. He would hate that. The image gave her some amusement, and she found herself laughing. It was a short, almost squawking sort of sound, cut off by a hitch of surprise in her breath. The laugh had felt like a bubble rising, and had sounded so unbelievably… _full._ The surprise itself spurred her on then, and more laughs bubbled up from her stomach.

Sansa imagined she must look wild to Jon, who held her eye contact with some off-balanced confusion. 

“I’m… I’m so… I’m sorry, I… Just…” She struggled to speak, and then to breathe as the catharsis of her fit overcame her like a wave over a playing child. Her laughter was full and overflowing and yellow, somehow. Soon she had to close her eyes to keep hysterical tears from falling. Instead, she fell back down to her knees before Jon, who had started to chuckle guardedly, confusedly. He didn’t know what to expect, and was scared of what she might do, Sansa imagined. Perhaps he even worried she was completely insane. _What a shame, what a disappointment that would be for him. To come all this way to find me, just to find a girl totally out of her wits,_ she thought, laughing all the while. She wanted to reassure him, but found she couldn’t speak. And if she could, she acknowledged, she might not be able to honestly dissuade him from his fears. _I might be mad!_ A fresh round of giggling. 

The atmosphere was growing a bit pink when her laughs became gasps for air. Wiping the last of the tears from her eyes, Sansa found Jon’s eyes again. The wariness and hope that she found there felt like a sweet blade piercing her heart, and the blood that flowed carried with it any sense of caution, leaking from her in rivers. His face was so perfect, so cracked and windblown and tense. He was not the boy that she let kiss her in the backyard the night of her first day in high school, either, and that filled her with relief and sadness. 

Pushed by the upheaval of emotions that wracked her body, Sansa lunged forward, throwing her arms around Jon’s neck and burying her face in his hair. The force of her assault swayed him, but he propped himself up with an arm behind him. Her weight was relying on his upper body now, but it took a moment for him to fully understand what was happening. When his other arm finally found a way around her upper back, lightly as the touch of a dragonfly’s wing, he found his cheeks were wet once more. 

**Jon**

Jon found himself suddenly self-conscious as he opened the passenger door for Sansa. His car was impressively dated and impressively worn. It smelled the slightest bit of Ghost, who was waiting not-so-patiently in Jon’s motel room, as was his way. The trash of his fast food lunch sat on the console and the leather was rubbed quite raw in some places. Sansa, who had not said a single word as Jon hovered over her short packing efforts for the last hour, seemed unbothered. Her two small suitcases sat ominously in the trunk, and Jon could swear he felt the heft of them there as he got behind the wheel.

He had expected Sansa to go to the barn to pack, as well, but when he had asked after it, she had shrugged, turned to meet his eyes, and gave a painful, vulnerable smile that he felt in his soul. 

She sat in his car now, hands shoved between her knees and eyes cast downward, to the dashboard. He felt the urge to pinch himself, to check that she was not some alcohol-fueled apparition, that the day had not been one huge hallucination, that he wouldn’t soon awaken in his rented room, Ghost whining angrily for dinner. He wouldn’t risk it, though. If it was a dream, it would end of its own accord, and he would enjoy it as long as he was allowed. 

The engine sputtered awake, and Sansa jumped next to him. The newly familiar ache in his chest pulsed. Jon turned to her. 

“Sorry, she’s an old thing.” Referring to his car as “she” was a habit learned from Ned Stark, an unconscious thing that he wished was a little _more_ conscious when she flinched, just the slightest bit. Covering for herself, Sansa turned to look at him, forcing a gritted smile. 

“No problem.” Averting her eyes quickly, Jon pondered at what a long distance they seemed to have come since she had had a right fit in her back lawn, laughing until he thought she might faint from a lack of oxygen, and then hugging him with such force that he had to catch the both of them. After that, he had been the one with an oxygen problem. He hid it well. Now, she seemed fearful, small, uncertain. It was a far cry, too, from the Sansa who had pointed a gun in his face and nearly fired. The memory already seemed a thousand miles away. He pushed it even farther. 

The ride to the motel was bumpy and silent until the last couple of miles, when Sansa finally asked him what he had been anticipating she would. 

“Where are you… Where are we going?” The sky was dusky now, deep blue welling up on the horizon. Jon spared her a glance and realized she was looking right at him, haunting eyes wide open. He fought the edgy uncertainty in the back of his mind and tried to remember that she had come with him willingly. 

Her question was not an easy one. The more time passed, the more Jon realized that his options were limited. Sansa was wanted nationally, by the government _and_ certain organized crime bosses. He knew how to keep from being followed, but if worse came to worst before they reached Winterfell, there were only two of them. And one gun. Beyond that, he was certain Arya and Bran could find a way to keep her safe there. But one thing was certain: no one would take Sansa while Jon lived. And, he thought vaguely, a weight in his chest tugging as he did, he doubted anyone would take Sansa while _Sansa_ lived. The best option was to lay it out for her. If he didn’t, she would figure it out otherwise. She had always been far smarter than him… and everyone else he knew. 

“I’m taking you to my motel room. We have to keep you hidden. We’ll leave while it’s still dark in the morning, and drive until it’s dark again. By tomorrow morning, we should reach White Harbor. I can call in a favor there for a boat. I imagine Arya will meet us in Winter town. Then, home.” He heard a little intake of breath then. Not quite a gasp, but almost. That ache in his chest was back again. She covered it up with a clearing of her throat. 

“Ok,” came the reply. 

It was full dark when they reached the motel, and before he could tell Sansa to stay in the car so he could make sure the coast was clear, she was out the door with her face pressed against the window of his room, tapping on the glass in response to Ghost’s excited licking and yelping on the other side. When he rushed out after her, he could hear her little endearments to him. 

“Oh, hi, hi there! It’s been so long, huh?! I missed you! I missed you so much! Are you excited to see me?!” Her voice was high and soft, gushing. Jon thought that perhaps the ache in his chest was permanent. It was persistent, but low and throbbing. Maybe a doctor was in order. 

Without thinking, he placed a hand on her mid back as he approached her, partially to let her know he was there and partially to remind himself that she was. She jumped again, and turned on her heel, stumbling backwards. Her hackles were raised and he watched her hand go to her hip out of reflex, grasping for air. It was only a split second before she eased back, though still tense, and swallowed. 

“S-” She had to swallow again, thickly. “Sorry. Habit. But can you please not… Don’t touch me unless I…” She broke off again, unsure of how to finish. In the dark, she was grateful he couldn’t see the red rising in her cheeks. Frustration and embarrassment. The uncertainty of talking to someone you used to dream about. 

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, it was just… I won’t do it again.” Jon was fumbling over his words again, and found himself worried that perhaps Sansa would begin to rethink her decision of trusting him as her travelling partner and the gun-wielder. If he couldn’t form a whole sentence, he wondered what possible business he could have trying to get her somewhere safely. 

Sansa nodded her thanks. Ghost gave a loud whine, pulling both of their attention. Jon searched for his key, finally finding it in his back pocket. He handed it to Sansa and turned wordlessly to get her bags. Normally, he might check the room first, to ensure a lack of ambush, but Ghost was more than enough proof he needed that she was safe. 

When Jon entered the room to find Sansa frozen inside the door, Ghost impatiently nipping at her pants legs, he worried he had been wrong to trust Ghost's intruder-detection skills. But following Sansa’s gaze revealed the root of the problem: Jon’s one bed suite. He felt his ears redden and knew the back of his neck must be flushed. What was this, high school? _I’m an adult. She’s an adult. There’s no reason to get so embarrassed._ But Sansa was red, too, he found as he stepped around her to set her bags down. _So, maybe there is a reason._

Sudden memories of laying next to her on a picnic blanket on a warm spring day after everyone else had gone in and craftily left the pair of them to clean everything up appeared behind his eyelids. Her face turned to him, her eyes ablaze and her lips like glazed fruit, Jon remembered her whispering something silly to him, the breeze stealing her words away like he wanted to steal the breath out of her mouth. He had imagined kissing every one of those freckles she loathed so dearly. And she had told him quietly that she would like it if he touched her, just a little. She had pulled his hand, put it on her chest, just below the curve of her throat, and he had watched her eyes flutter closed as he drew lazy doodles on her skin, wondering what it would feel like to draw them lower. Clearing his throat loudly to shake such physically betraying thoughts from his head, Jon drew her attention to him. 

“I’ll take the couch.” He said it smoothly, hoping his reddened complexion wouldn’t give him away like it had her. 

“Oh, yeah.” Sansa brought her hand to her mouth, taking her pointer finger between her teeth ever so slightly. It was an old habit, one that Jon remembered from watching her do her homework or read a book. He could almost imagine it now, her hair longer and loose, a patterned dress on instead of her worn jeans and tank top. Happiness, innocence, a memory from before Winterfell… Well, _fell._ He felt the ache in his chest once more, so light he could almost ignore it. Almost. “Thanks, Jon.” She didn’t look at him. He was grateful for that. 

**an hour later**

The sofa was tiny. Like, really, really small. Jon’s entire lower legs hung from the end of it, and Sansa had looked conflictingly at him before turning the lights out. Her hair had still been damp from the shower, and his even moreso. He knew from experience that she must have used very little hot water in order for him to still have had as much as he did. Something about that knowledge had tugged on his gut a little bit when he was in there. It had probably not been helped by the misty smell of Sansa left behind. He found it rather magical that she still used the same shampoo after all these years. Or maybe it was body wash. Either way, lilies and citrus and vanilla lingered so lightly on the air that he had to really focus to smell it. The effort made it more special, somehow. 

It was that smell and the beautiful tiredness of the resolution of the meaning of his life for years that lulled him into sleep. 

When Sansa’s voice woke him up, Jon was on his feet in an instant. Ghost peered up sleepily, more aware than Jon was that Sansa had only murmured a bit. She was still asleep. But the sound of her covers as she kicked her legs brought Jon closer. She whimpered again, followed by a short shout. Ghost started to growl lowly, and Jon approached Sansa to wake her up, only to remember that she had asked him not to touch her. But, if he let her continue, Ghost would get worked up and probably alert the motel clerk to his very-against-the-rules presence in the room. And, more pressingly, alert anyone sniffing around the place, regardless of how unlikely it might be. 

So, very gently, Jon placed a hand on her upper arm. She was up like a shot, recoiling and reaching for an absent gun on the night stand. She was breathing hard, raggedly.

“I’m really sorry, I had to wake you. You were making noise and Ghost was getting wired.” He tried his best to be soothing, and sat at the far end of the bed to give her space. When she was breathing more easily, she replied. 

“No, I get it. Sorry.” Her voice was barely there, and the fear in it was palpable, a raw nerve in the air. The ache returned to Jon’s chest.

“Don’t be sorry.” He tried to reflect as much sincerity and comfort into his voice as he could, desperate for her to feel safe. He was both terrified and eager to know what she had dreamt about. He found he wanted to know her again, almost more than he could bear. After a moment, Sansa laid back down, and Jon returned to the sofa. Just when he felt the edges of sleep closing in, he heard her again. 

“What?” He had missed it, her voice so low and his need for sleep so high. A beat. 

“I said, can you please… Sleep in the bed? With me?” Jon remained still for a second before rising again. Slowly, like approaching a scared animal, he walked over to the side of the bed that was vacant, bringing his blanket with him. 

“Yeah.” He whispered, trying not to break the bubble of whatever this was. He laid down on top of the covers and pulled his blanket over him. Staring at the ceiling, he felt somewhere in him that there was something left, that she wasn’t quite done.

“Can you… Just, can you touch me? Just a little?” Jon understood what a sacrifice it was for her to ask. He understood how much she must need it, to voice it out loud. Without answer, he turned on his side and waited. Sansa took his hand, and Jon felt the familiar warmth and burning of her skin on his, like this. She draped his arm over the small of her waist and scooched backwards, touched his chest with her back just barely. His hand rested on the mattress in front of her, and he could feel her shuddering under his arm. She was trembling, not from the cold but from something within her. The shaking ignited the ache in his chest once more, back with a frightening power.

If he could have, he would have chased those ghosts away for her, torn them apart. Deep down, he knew she had to do that alone. But he would be damned if he wouldn’t be behind her all the while.

The last thing Jon heard before he drifted off was an abashed admission. Though her voice was still wobbling, Sansa gave the tiniest chuckle. 

"Sorry about your hand." Her finger touched the bandage over her bite. Jon snorted softly.

"It's ok." And, for that moment in that dirty hotel room, with Ghost by their side and sleep fading, in it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know whether you like it alone or if you would read a multi-chapter fic of this! Also always open to criticism, advice, and corrections!


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